The Japanese rabbit breeder people told me that after the nuclear blast, scientists had a facility on the island testing the effects of radiation in successive generations (So they would expose a mama and daddy to radiation, and because rabbits breed so fast they could get quick info) Then their funding got cut off, so they thought because it was an island they could just release the rabbits. Then some years later after a school project with rabbits was finished, a science teacher and his class who knew about the rabbits on the island took their bunnies there and let them go. I always loved the Japanese rabbit breeders, they would make these cute little collars made from silk with japanese cartoon characters on it for the bunnies and would sell them at their booth at the national show, and one time a girl named kiuki *pronounced keee-uuu-keee* gave me this beautiful handkerchief that was silk and had a design on it of rabbits leaping in tall grass on a hill surrounded by waves, and she told me it was rabbit island.