This is speculation, but most likelly he found someone who knew how to do that. In effect he was selling his rabits locally to a middleman, who sold the rabit meat in California to restaurants. And when the story gets told this get to be abbreviated to “sold rabbits to restaurants in California”.

Too many people didn't read the article, or skimmed it.

No one was saying he was selling/trading only locally, even the article says he had a contractor delivering the rabbits for him.

Again- what he did was on a much bigger scale than we did coming up, but no less different thab happens every day.

OP made it sound like fantastical nonsense.

I'm explaining why it is not.