Wild melanistic or black rabbits are quite rare here but do occur I used to pass a few on my way to work, but the warren suffered from Myxomatosis and the black ones appear to have died out. In some areas of the country they are finding a lot of black North American Grey Squirrels too.
In the dolomite mountains of northern Italy in a few years ago nearly every red squirrel I saw was actually black.
Looking at the head and chest markings I think this is a domestic colour variety rather than a pure black wild rabbit. Three seperate colonies I know of contain some white, orange or grey('argente'-coloured) individuals-each colony having only one colour variant. The orange(fawn) ones are on a chalk cliff-top- at one time they seemed quite numerous but the percentage of them has dwindled recently. The white ones are in a marsh location- they are a dirty white and remain pretty stable at two/three individuals in the colony.. The blue ones are much rarer- there was one male I used to see always in the same place for several years, but he has gone now. But another of the same colour appeared in a hedgerow on the other side of the road.
this was photographed in Herefordshire, there is a field of them about 15-20 that mix with the feral coloured population, so it is a wild one but the black coloured rabbits do have this fawn colour trim on them, perhaps a domesticated rabbit got loose and started to breed with the feral population, i dont know
its not uncommon to see black rabbits where i live, heck ive seen a few fawn colours and white ones before
This animals does look to have domestic blood in it. A few miles from us on the Cambridgehsire/Northamptonshire border, a free range poultry farm has a large area of permanent grassland. The odd black rabbit is usually seen there, and has been since I was a child. The gene is obviously in the relatively isolated population. These are always solid black and appear (from a distance at least) to be 'true' melanistic.
