I’ve had several friends have rabbits in my lifetime. They all t eventually let them go instead of finding a new home. Each time I looked at them in horror while I imagined the lucky hawk having dinner.
Most people think rabbits are “natural” when they may actually be invasive. So they let them go. Finding a new home is the last thing on every one of these owners mind.
I could never imagine doing this to an animal I care about. This is sociopathic behaviour. Unless they believe the rabbit will survive, in which it's just wildly ignorant. And therefore irresponsible, because a rabbit owner should have a rough understanding of what a rabbit is and how they work.
There was a case here in Norway a few years back. A litter of dead kittens was found in the woods, wrapped in several layers of plastic bags. Inner layers had scratches proving the kittens were alive and not stillborn.
Hongkong has a _modest_ social problem related to freeing unwanted pets into the wild. There are numerous billboards and buses adverts warning people not to do it.
On the other hand, there is very real urban legend of a salt water crocodile that was captured in early 2000s in the Hongkong wild. It was hunted for months. Authorities have no idea if was a release, or travelled from nearby (more tropical) region. Read more about Pui Pui on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pui_Pui_(crocodile) She is even on show at the Hongkong Wetland Park. But if you want to see salties in the wild without too much effort or stress, you can do that in Singapore at a wetland reserve near Kranji.
It's not contradictory in the slightest, the odds of a domesticated and domestic rabbit surviving predation are effectively nil.
The odds that it manages a litter first are higher, especially if it escapes pregnant, which rabbits generally are if they're able to be. Those pups are feral, not domestic, and have moderately better odds. Given enough generations, the domesticated neoteny is selected out by predation and now you have an invasive population of feral rabbits which can survive in the wild.
Most people think rabbits are “natural” when they may actually be invasive. So they let them go. Finding a new home is the last thing on every one of these owners mind.