Why do telomere lengths not predict differences in life spans among species?
The answer should be obvious: Telomeres do not determine an organism's longevity.  

There's only a vague correlation between telomere length and a species' lifespan.  See Comparative biology of mammalian telomeres: hypotheses on ancestral states and the roles of telomeres in longevity determination for a starting point.  Telomeres are a part of the longevity story, but probably a fairly small part.

The Hayflick limit is generally associated with telomere length. Human telomeres are a little on the long side as species go, but are not extraordinary. Many species of mice, and other rodents, have far longer telomeres than humans, for example, and obviously have much shorter lifespans. There's also such a thing as a "mega-telomere", found in a number of bird species, which can hundreds of times longer than human telomeres.