Two Arizona groups are at war over the future of the Salt River horses

For decades, visitors and Arizonans alike have flocked to see a herd of wild horses that roam near the lower Salt River.

Known as the Salt River Horses, the animals are believed to have lived along the river in northeast Mesa for more than 100 years. They are iconic symbols of the West, beloved by everyone from nature photographers to those looking for a respite from the urban sprawl of metro Phoenix. People come from all over to the Tonto National Forest to watch their brown and splotchy white coats dipping into the river to find fresh eelgrass, or to see a foal chasing after a mare.

But just as the horses inspire passion, they also inspire passionate arguments. Some think the horses should be removed because they will eventually overgraze the land to the point where it cannot sustain them. Others want the horses left alone, with numbers carefully managed via fertility treatments. Arguments play out in court cases and Facebook groups, each side suspecting the motives of the other.

One such argument, between the group that currently manages the wild horse population and another that would like to take over that responsibility, has been roiling for months. The fight has gotten nasty, and both groups say the future of the Salt River Horses — and Arizonans’ ability to enjoy them — is on the line.

The group that currently manages the horses is the nonprofit Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, and it has a lot of supporters. On Facebook, 174,000 people follow the group, which consists mainly of volunteers who tend to the horse population and is led by Simone Netherlands. An additional Facebook group, the 93,000-follower “Salt River Wild Horse - Advocates” group, largely parrots the talking points of the first.

But a much smaller group has been training its fire on the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group. Dubbed the “Wild Horse Transition Team,” the group is run by professor and historian John Mack and U.S. Forest Service contractor Jacquelyn Hughes. It has only 232 members, though a related Facebook group has 3,000 followers. Between them, the groups are harshly critical of the current management group, claiming the group isn’t open to opposing ideas, risks damaging the environment by letting the horses overgraze and isn’t transparent about how it spends money.

The Salt River Wild Horse Management Group’s current contract expires in July. As the Department of Agriculture begins considering who should manage the horses going forward, the feud between the two horse-loving factions has reached a fever pitch. Both are competing for the next contract to manage the horses, and both think the other will imperil the horses, and perhaps the environment, with their plans.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture has sent signals that it is prepared to change horses midstream — moving away from Netherlands’ group and adopting a management plan more aligned with Mack and Hughes but that Netherlands finds problematic.

The fate of the Valley’s beloved wild horses hangs in the balance.

Changing horses?

As best as anyone knows, the Salt River horses have been there for centuries.

The horses are not technically native to Arizona — horses that once lived in the Americas went extinct thousands of years ago before being reintroduced by Spanish colonizers in the late 15th century. But they’ve certainly been here longer than most transplants. Most estimates trace their origin to the Italian missionary Father Eusebio Kino, who established a series of missions in Arizona in 1691. By 1890, the Arizona Champion Newspaper referred to the horses as “native stock.”

It wasn’t until 2016, though, that the Salt River horses enjoyed special protection. That year, then-Gov. Doug Ducey signed the Salt River Horse Act, which states the horses are not “stray animals” and that no one can “take, chase, capture or euthanize” a horse without approval from the Arizona Department of Agriculture or the county sheriff. A horse can only be removed for “humane” purposes, such as if they’re old or injured.

Every five years, the Arizona Department of Agriculture grants approval for a group to manage the roughly 280 horses now living on the river. The contract is a zero-dollar deal, meaning interested groups must fund their own efforts. That bidding process began again this year, though the department recently canceled the bidding “because of unauthorized conversations that allegedly violated state law.” Netherlands said she thinks every bidder broke those rules — her group included. The department said it will soon start the process over, and Netherlands expects four organizations to bid for the contract.

When it does, the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group will apply to renew its contract. However, the group isn't hopeful of success. The Department of Agriculture is asking interested groups to submit proposals that adhere to a new provision to remove three adult horses — via adoption — for every foal born into the herd. To Netherlands, who is the president of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, such an approach is anathema to her beliefs about how the herd should be managed.

Her group has managed the horses through a fertility program. Volunteers dart mares with PZP, a drug that prevents pregnancy, ensuring that natural deaths outnumber births every year. According to the group’s numbers, they have taken the population from 463 horses in 2019 to 280 now, without taking any horses from the herd. The group is well on its way to thinning the herd to between 100-200 horses by 2030, as laid out in an agriculture department control plan in 2020.

“We have proven that wild horses can be humanely managed without removing a single horse,” Netherlands said.

But with the agriculture department’s new 3-for-1 requirement, Netherlands doesn’t expect that track record to get her group very far as it seeks to renew its contract. Applicants will be stating their population goal and Netherlands fears that the contract might go to whichever group intends to leave the fewest. Though she wouldn’t say what number her group will submit, she knows it’ll have to be lower than they’d like to have a chance. She said the department intends to leave only 100 horses on the river, which she doesn’t think is a viable number.

“I know that if we write 200 horses in our proposal, we will not get hired,” she said.

Bad blood

The group much more aligned with the department’s new guidelines is the one led by Mack and Hughes, whom Netherlands regards with intense skepticism.

Mack told Phoenix New Times that the 3-for-1 provision is “not something I would have done,” but Netherlands fears the Mack- and Hughes-led group would take advantage of it by allowing more foals to be born so that three corresponding adult horses could be removed and auctioned. (Hughes did not respond to a request for comment.)

That suspicion is informed by some shared history. Netherlands is familiar with Hughes, who is a former U.S. Forest Service contractor who played an alleged role in the removal of the Alpine Wild Horses in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in the White Mountains in 2022. The Forest Service claimed the wild horses were contributing to habitat damage for the native species, though many wild horse advocates dispute that phenomenon and insist the horses are native to the land.

The Forest Service hired Hughes’ company, Rail Lazy H, to facilitate the removal and sell the horses at auctions in Texas, which requires them to be classified as “unauthorized livestock.” Netherlands and other wild horse advocates fear that when these horses are sold at auctions, they are at risk of being sold for slaughter.

Netherlands and others from her group tried to bid for the horses in online auctions, but were prevented from participating. Last July, Salt River Wild Horse Management Group and the group American Wild Horse Conservation teamed to sue the Forest Service and the Arizona Department of Agriculture over the issue, claiming the two government agencies failed to provide an adequate 15-day notice of the sales. The groups also accused Hughes’ company of self-dealing, shill bidding — which is when a seller bids to increase the end price at auction — and said the company ​​“has worked for personal gain at the expense of the Forest Service.”

At the time of its complaint, the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group said it had found homes for 392 of the Alpine Wild Horses. As of May 19, Forest Service and the Arizona Department of Agriculture were seeking to get the lawsuit dismissed.

Netherlands fears the same thing will happen with the Salt River horses, and she thinks Mack’s and Hughes’ group “see money in selling” them. “It’s all a giant, big scheme against these horses,” she said. “They are not fighting for the well-being of these horses. They are fighting for a nice, lucrative way to breed horses and have a constant stream.”

The agriculture department bidding process prevents her from expressing such concerns to anyone at the department, so she has been making her case as loudly as possible elsewhere. She said she’s spoken to state legislators on both sides of the aisle and with staffers of Gov. Katie Hobbs. She’s also asked the Attorney General’s Office about the legality of the 3-for-1 provision.

The Attorney General’s office declined to comment to New Times. The Governor’s Office did not respond.

“The public of Arizona thinks these horses are safe because they have a bill that protects them,” Netherlands said. “Should they hire Jackie Hughes, that would literally be a mockery of the bill, it would be a decision without any compassion at all and it would be a decision that would be the end of the Salt River Wild horses.”

A rival perspective

As one might expect, John Mack disputes Netherlands’ characterization.

A a Fountain Hills resident and a history professor who teaches an online course at Georgia State University-Perimeter College, he certainly didn’t expect to become this intimately involved with wild horses in Arizona. His wife is a wildlife photographer, and the two of them traveled to photograph and research wild horse herds for a book about the history of free-roaming horses in the West.

During those travels, the Salt River herd stood out, in a bad way. “It became clear to us that what you’re seeing at the Salt River is not what you see when you travel around the country and look at all the free-roaming wild horse herds,” Mack said. Mack became concerned about how the herd was being managed and decided that there needed to be an alternative.

Then, the agriculture department opened its (since-canceled but soon-to-be-reopened) bidding process. On May 5, Mack announced his intention to try for the contract managing the herd alongside Hughes. In a press release about his decision, he said he “took seriously the many accusations and allegations I’ve seen circulated about Jackie Hughes” but that he was comfortable teaming with her.

“I conducted my own independent investigation. I reviewed public records, communications, and statements made by all parties involved,” Mack wrote. “Based on the evidence, I am convinced that these attacks are based on lies, half-truths, innuendo, and emotionally charged narratives.”

Mack has three main beefs with how the Salt River horses have been managed. He said the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group doesn’t play well with others and he questions how the group manages its money.

He also thinks the horses are causing environmental damage, which he said is “based on well-established ecological principles, direct field observations and scientific studies.” He said “rangeland scientists and wildlife biologists have documented loss of native vegetation, soil compaction and damage to young cottonwood and mesquite trees” in “areas of concentrated horse activity.”

Netherlands and American Wild Horse Conservation dispute that conclusion. They say environmental damage mostly comes from humans and that the horses, which have been grazing on the land for centuries, are “scapegoat(s).”

“​​There are no scientific data published in any peer-reviewed journal about the Salt River wild horses or the lower Salt River habitat,” American Wild Horse Conservation wrote on its website. “Neither the U.S. Forest Service nor any other organizations have performed a scientific study or overall environmental assessment of the lower Salt River, indicating that there have not been serious environmental concerns on the lower Salt River to date.”

Netherlands’ group also rejected a 2025 forage assessment study from the University of Arizona that found that the Salt River Horse Management Area did not provide an adequate supply of food necessary for the horses. In a Facebook post, the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group claimed the study “is based on unverified, non-peer-reviewed data that dramatically overstates forage needs of wild horses and ignores natural climate cycles.”

But Jacob Hennig, ​​an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment, says there’s some truth to the notion that wild horses can negatively affect the environment. “Wild horses can, if they’re allowed to, lead to ecological degradation,” said Henning, who works with wild horses around Arizona but not the Salt River horses specifically. Horses eat more, which can limit regrowth. Climate change may make things worse.

“Especially in the Southwest, we’re getting more arid and hotter each year,” he said. “That combined with overgrazing can really be challenging and can lead to some unintended and unwanted consequences.”

What’s next

With the bidding process starting over, it’s hard to forecast what will happen with the horses. Mack said that if another group besides Mack’s wins the contract — except the one led by Netherlands, it seems — he would offer his support. “I’m not a scientist, I don’t know what that looks like,” Mack said. “I’m a process guy, I know how things should be done and I’m really good at getting the right people in the room.”

One thing that’s certain is that Netherlands’ group and the one led by Mack and Hughes harbor a deep distrust for each other. What also seems to be true is that both care deeply about the fate of the horses, at least enough to argue endlessly about it on social media.

Whoever takes over managing the beloved Salt River horses will be signing up to not only handle the herd but also to suffer the slings and arrows of passionate detractors.

“We have to find a way to work together,” Mack said.

If that’s even possible.