MADRID, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Climate change pushed the woolly mammoth to extinction even if it was hunting by our ancestors that finally finished off the species about 3,500 years ago, a Spanish study said Tuesday.

Using climate models and fossil remains, researchers concluded that the habitat available to the mammoth had shrunk by 90 percent as glaciers receded through the ages.

By 6,000 years ago, the 'suitable climactic area' available to the woolly mammoths 'was too small to host populations able to withstand increased human hunting pressure,' the researchers wrote in Public Library of Science journal.

'Our analyses suggest that the humans applied the coup de grace,' it added.

The methodology of the study can be employed to predict 'what will be the potential risk for species in the future due to the effects of climate change,' David Nogues-Bravo, a researcher at Madrid's Museo Nacional Ciencias Naturales who led the study, told a Madrid news conference.