Under German environmental law, representative actions, which allow environmental nongovernmental organizations to challenge acts or omissions of environmental authorities, have been established and expanded for some decades. Recently, some German states have issued legislation which grants civil associations committed to the protection of animals standing in administrative courts to file representative lawsuits to enforce animal protection law. While these developments have not been considered thoroughly in academic doctrine and jurisprudence, yet, two books on this topic have been published, recently. An edited volume and a dissertation present a broad scope of substantive and procedural issues inherent in representative actions with regard to animal protection cases. This essay takes the opportunity of a joint book review and discusses major issues of representative actions and its transfer to the law of animal protection. In particular, it is demonstrated that salient procedural consequences still remain obscure and should be put under further scrutiny.