 While climate change has been forwarded as a possible reason, it is insufficient to explain the animal's complete extinction; although the extremely cold conditions following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) diminished favourable hyena habitat in Northern Europe, and separated cave hyena populations from their African kin, there were still habitable localities in Southern and Central Europe at that time, and the animal survived many other cold periods during the Pleistocene.In the Iberian Peninsula, climate change was ruled out as the sole cause of the cave hyena's extinction, for although the LGM resulted in a mass extinction of several hyena prey species, the red deer and several other herbivore species survived and would still have adequately sustained hyena populations.In Western Europe at least, the cave hyena's extinction coincided with a decline in grasslands 12,500 years ago.