New UN Climate Report Casts Doubt on Earlier Extinction Predictions - SPIEGEL ONLINE

In 2007, the IPCC predicted that rising global temperatures would kill off many species. But in its new report, part of which will be presented next Monday, the UN climate change body backtracks. There is a shortage of evidence, a draft version claims.

The last remaining passenger pigeon, Martha, died a century ago in a Cincinnati zoo. The bird's downfall was having tender, tasty meat so pleasing to the human palate.

Hundreds of species have suffered the same fate in modern times. The last Tasmanian wolf died in an Australian zoo in 1936. Two years later, the final remaining Schomburgk's deer met its end as a pet in a Thai temple. The Chinese river dolphin hasn't been sighted for years either. In total, 77 species of mammal, 130 birds, 22 reptiles and 34 amphibians have vanished from the face of the earth since 1500, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Humans have shrunk the habitats of many life forms, through unsustainable agriculture, fishing or hunting. And it is going to get even worse. Global warming is said to be threatening thousands of animal and plant species with extinction. That, at least, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been predicting for years.

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