PLAGIARISM — when your work becomes someone else’s story.

COMPARE THESE TWO POSTS AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

On July 17, 2026, one of our content volunteers, Pam B., published our post about Sapphire—her complete heterochromia, the role of melanin, her history with Shadowfax, her offspring and her family relationships.

Low and behold, barely two months later, on September 15, John Mack “” published Sapphire as “HIS” Tuesday Tribute on his “Salt River Truth” page, where btw we can rarely find any percentage of the Truth.

The post is: Same horse. Same unusual characteristic: complete heterochromia. Same explanation involving melanin. Same connection to Shadowfax. Same focus on her offspring and family relationships. (The only difference is him closing with a WRONG assumption of a connection to Rascal/Citrine, who has a blue eye, but no genealogical relation to Sapphire.)

But we can find no credit to SRWHMG—or anyone else—as the source.

Now imagine dedicating your life—more than 20 years—to fighting for these wild horses, organizing their histories and documenting everything you can about them. Imagine designing an app to preserve that information because you know it is important for their protection. Imagine seeing every one of them born, watching many of them die, being there when they are injured or in danger, feeding them through drought, raising the money to care for them, and doing it year after year because without this work, they could not continue to exist here.

We don’t normally toot our own horn, but that is what Simone and the volunteers of SRWHMG have done—creating a humane way to manage these wild horses while keeping them in their home. We designed this government/NGO partnership and continue to offer it for free. Our media work exposed the threat of removal, our legislative work got the Salt River Horse Act passed, our legal work won court battle after court battle, our field work kept the herd’s population under control, and our professionalism with the government continues to keep it in place. All of this combined is what is needed to keep these treasured horses here.

That is why this goes far beyond being opportunistic and unfair. John Mack runs Salt River Truth, and started his own non profit, even without having to bear the cost of managing the horses. According to our records, he did not end his non profit or return donations, after he found out he did not win the contract to manage them. According to our screenshots he even raised funds to feed them, which we then never received to actually feed them. He publicly attacks SRWHMG and quite literally told people not to trust us, but donate to him instead, while using our original work and documented information to build his own posts and credibility, without giving us credit.

And before anyone says it: No, these horses do not “belong” to SRWHMG, and we have never claimed they do. And yes, many wonderful photographers photograph them, share their observations and help tell their stories. We love and appreciate them for it and they love and appreciate us as well.

But the horses and the work documenting them are two different things. Nobody owning the horses does not mean nobody owns their own photographs, writing, research, databases or original work. We WANT people talking about these horses and sharing information. What we object to is someone taking information others spent years gathering, presenting it as their own without credit, while publicly attacking the organization whose work they are using.

You cannot publicly tear down the people doing the work and then quietly rely on that same work to build yourself up.

We welcome questions and criticism, and we don’t expect everyone to agree with everything we do. But after more than two decades of showing up for these horses—through threats from government and nature, drought, injuries, emergencies and court battles—we don’t think honesty, fairness and acknowledgement of where the information came from is too much to ask. (Especially of someone who loves to portray himself as the epitome of decency and righteousness)

If you agree that the people doing the work deserve a little credit for that work, please share this to help! Thank you so much!

SRWHMG’s original content, research and herd information may not be copied, republished or repackaged as someone else’s work without proper credit to SRWHMG. Thank You.

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