Keith, the National Shooting Sports Foundation--wouldn't you say they're probably pro-hunting?--regards Audubon as neutral on hunting. Along with the Sierra Club and some other organizations. You want anti, take a look at the positions of HSUS, Friends of Animals, etc. Here is Audubon's official statement on hunting:
"Has never been opposed to the hunting of game species if that hunting is done ethically and in accordance with laws and regulations designed to prevent depletion of the wildlife resource."
They're not all about promoting hunting, but I can live with that position. And if we, as hunters, can make common cause with them . . . so much the better.
As for lead in the soil . . . indeed, easy to see how a woodcock--given how they feed and what they feed on--might get lead from the soil. And of course lead is a naturally occurring element. We don't need to do anything to "put it into the environment". But it's a little hard to see how upland birds other than woodcock would be nearly as likely to end up with lead in a similar manner. Nor, for that matter, to ingest lead pellets--unless that happens when they're picking up grit. And there are examples of doves with lead pellets in their digestive system. But doves are more like waterfowl (a lot of concentrated shot fall on areas where they're heavily hunted) than they are like pheasants or grouse or quail, where shot fall is going to be very scattered. And while lead shot and bullets don't break down readily or dissolve, the soil where they drop does not remain static. If it did, rather than having to dig up lead on shooting ranges--especially trap and skeet ranges--you could just go out there with a hoe and scrape all those pellets together in a big pile. Depending on the composition of the soil, as a result of freezing, thawing etc, it gradually works itself underground. Same with the bottoms of lakes and streams, which are constantly getting new layers of silt. We've significantly reduced the amount of lead we're dropping into water, and that's now been going on for about 25 years. If lead were still a significant problem in marshes, lakes, etc . . . then why aren't we still seeing all those dying ducks and geese? Why did the problem largely resolve itself as a result of the lead shot ban? Pretty easy to turn that example on its head and leave it to you to come up with some other source of lead that was killing ducks and geese previously but is now gone. And just happens to have disappeared at the same time we stopped shooting lead at waterfowl.
I'll agree that Flint isn't the only example of a contaminated waterway . . . but I think you'll agree that it is an EXTREME example. Although the various DNR's issue precautionary notices on some bodies of water, there aren't many where lead contamination is so high that eagles are likely to die from lead poisoning as a result of eating the fish. And if a dead eagle shows a high level of lead in its blood as well as other signs of having been poisoned, lead poisoning is a pretty likely cause.
The real problem with lead is that it's toxic. Toxic = bad. The simplistic solution therefore: Get rid of that bad, toxic stuff. That's what we're up against. But we can insist on "good science" to support any claims that it's really lead--and lead from bullets or shot--that's killing species X, Y, or Z.
