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A ban on the sale of civet cats in China has been lifted despite the creature's possible link to the spread of SARS -- a sign that economic concerns are trumping medical precautions barely a season after the height of SARS.

"Starting to sell them in markets again seems to be looking for trouble," Henry Niman, a Harvard University professor who has tracked SARS since its earliest days, said Friday.

The ban, first imposed at the end of April, prohibited the hunting, transport, sale and purchase of most wild animals. It was one of the many sweeping measures China imposed to curb the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which first appeared in the southern province of Guangdong in November before hopscotching around the globe and infecting thousands.

This week's decision, issued by China's Forestry Administration, lifted the prohibition on sale and purchase of 54 types of wildlife - - including civet cats, which have been identified as carriers of the SARS virus -- as long as they are farm-raised.

"Wildlife breeding and trading is a healthy industry as long as we follow scientific technologies and strict administration," a forestry spokesman who would give only his surname, Li, said Friday.

More than 800 people around the world died of SARS, most of them in Asia, before it subsided in June. In mainland China, more than 5,300 people were sickened and 349 died of the disease, with more than half of those in the capital, Beijing, the hardest-hit city in the world.

Medical investigators believe the virus jumped from animals to humans and could still be rampant among wildlife populations. Researchers have warned the disease could re-emerge when cold weather returns.

In May, the SARS virus was found in civets, mammals resembling large weasels with long, catlike bodies and a large tail. They are considered a delicacy in China, and their meat is prized.

enough to fetch about $5 a pound -- a princely sum in a country where the average urban worker makes only about $700 a year.

Researchers have said that while fully cooked civet meat is probably safe, people could become infected while handling the animals during breeding, slaughter or preparation.

Many Chinese claim wildlife dishes boost virility and strengthen immunity to disease. Consuming those recipes has become a deep- rooted tradition in the south, a place brimming with live-animal markets and communities where people live in close quarters with animals.

"The ban affected our business in a big way," said Liu Peizheng, manager of Big Buddha Mouth restaurant in Guangzhou, whose bill of fare includes snakes, birds and boar. "We haven't sold wild animals since the ban was lifted. We're waiting for other restaurants to sell them before we follow suit."

Dr. Alan Schnur, a World Health Organization official in Beijing, said he believed the prohibition was lifted because of demand.

"There are economic considerations," Schnur said. "Locals like to eat these animals."

An official at the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau said the lifting of the ban "is huge good news for breeding farms and the whole industry."

"Wildlife breeding and trading is a traditional industry here," said the official, who refused to give his name.

He said the ban had adversely impacted breeding farmers and traders, who were forced to eliminate such exotic wares as civets, bats, badgers and anteater-like pangolins, stocking ducks and rabbits instead.

Harvard's Niman said authorities must establish a monitoring system to ensure the animals go back to the marketplace disease- free.

"I think it's pretty much a wild card," Niman said in a telephone interview. "The virus that causes SARS is capable of living in humans, civet cats and raccoon dogs. That's quite a range of animals."

A team of 14 experts from China's health and science ministries, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization are in Guangdong to study links between SARS and animals. In coming days, they will visit markets, restaurants, a pig farm and a wildlife farm.

Schnur said more research is needed to determine the origin and transmission path of the virus to justify a ban.

"So far, the evidence is not there," he said.

"There's a whole range of areas to look into, such as which animal could be a reservoir for the SARS virus, in what way it's harboring the virus and what the potential transmission is," Schnur said. "It's very much work in progress."