Deep sea adventurer and advocate Jacques Cousteau once stated: “The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.” An environmental enthusiast might consider this statement a testimonial for wildlife’s “right to exist.” Those less keen on a broad reading of animal rights might argue that it buttresses the claim that animals’ right to exist depends upon humans’ desire to enjoy that existence. As the dominant earth species, Homo sapiens have power over the fate of weaker beings—power that is harnessed by environmental legislation. While animal rights laws have existed in rudimentary form since the third century BC, major wildlife protection legislation first appeared in the United States in the early 1970s. With thousands of species facing extinction, Congress enacted legislation protecting the plant and animal life of our ecosystem. Laws such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) and the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 (NEPA) have made great strides in shielding vulnerable wildlife. Judicial restrictions on civil environmental litigation, however, confine the focus of lawsuits to the aesthetic, recreational, and scientific needs of humans, rather than the common underlying motivation for such litigation—the desire to curtail wildlife harm and destruction.