Is it time to bring back bushmeat?

As Ebola slowly retreats from West Africa, some are calling for a revival of the bushmeat trade, which was blamed for triggering the deadly outbreak.

Liberia lost almost 5,000 people to the Ebola outbreak that started in 2013, but now a growing faction of Liberians are calling for the return of bushmeat, the product blamed for triggering the outbreak in the first place. Despite news of recent infections, some market traders have already flouted the bushmeat ban and are beginning to revive the trade, buoyed with optimism about the drastic dip in Ebola deaths.

Obviously, this is controversial. Bushmeat-wild bats, pigs, rodents, monkeys, antelope, and occasionally apes-is widely accepted as the source of the recent epidemic, and was banned in countries hardest-hit by the virus after it was traced back to a toddler in Guinea who likely contracted Ebola from an infected straw-coloured fruit bat. Mostly, it's not consumption that poses a risk (cooking and boiling the meat gets rid of the virus), but contact with an infected animal's bodily fluids, like its blood. Consequently, the ban was designed to limit hunters and market traders, who face the highest risk of infection when they come into contact with live animals and raw, bloody meat. Some also see the crackdown as a welcome conservation move, believing it will give dwindling forest species room to recover.