The cowboy symbolizes the American West and universal manly virtues. For a few decades these rugged individualists ran roughshod over the wild expanse of the West, herding cattle, taming broncs, and working dawn to dusk. In myth, the cowboy still is the West at its best.

But times they are a changing. The West isn't so vast and wild any more. Thanks to technology, the hours aren't as long, and the winters are more bearable. Today's cowboys are surrounded by subdivisions, ski resorts, and silicon chips. In many areas where cattle were dominant, service industries and high technology now swamp the economic significance of cattle.

The cowboy is increasingly branded as a historical artifact, environmentally damaging and politically incorrect. He seems grossly inappropriate for the twenty-first century. These criticisms are loudest after catastrophes such as the recent floods.

One articulate critic, the popular and highly successful nature and travel author George Wuerthner, of Eugene, Oregon, saw cow-caused calamity:

"There's no doubt it rained a lot, but what isn't readily recognized is how human resource extraction industries may have exacerbated the situation, indirectly contributing to the severity and economic losses 'precipitated' by the recent storms.

"Livestock grazing, perhaps more than any other factor, has contributed to the 'record' floods. It is made even more pernicious since it's the least appreciated human-related impact upon watersheds.

"Our domestic cattle breeds evolved in moist woodlands in Eurasian, yet we often attempt to raise them in arid, desert and semi-desert environments. But this comes at a cost not often recognized by most people.

"Due to their high water needs, and desire for lush, green forage, cattle trample, stomp, and chomp western riparian zones into oblivion. Riparian areas are the thin green lines of water-dependent vegetation that border streams, seeps, and springs in the West.

"Beside being critical for wildlife--with some 70-80% of all species dependent upon them to some degree or another--riparian areas are also one of the major natural 'flood control' mechanisms in nature.

"A healthy riparian zone holds streams banks together, allows stream water to access its natural flood plain, thus dissipating downstream flows, and absorbs water like a giant sponge. A healthy riparian area reduces a flood peak, and slows the passage of water through a watershed, giving the land time to absorb and dissipate the high flows.

"Unlike healthy riparian areas, cow blasted streams can't access their flood plains--instead water races downstream as a 'flood.' With little vegetation to hold the banks together, streams channels are torn asunder, causing channel straightening and widening--again contributing to downstream floods. Finally, in a cow-blasted stream and watershed, water can't soak into compacted banks and soils and runs off in giant sheets, leading to greater peak flows."

As Wuerthner explains, too many cows can increase our susceptibility to floods. Cowboys and their cows may have had free reign of the old West, but the massive flooding of 1997 demonstrates the costs. Writers such as Wuerthner see the cowboy not for his manly attributes but rather as an environmental vandal imposing serious costs on the environment, taxpayers, and local communities.

These outcries against cows and cowboys discount culture, social organization, and rural values. Environmentalists routinely lambaste economists' myopic fixation on efficiency over humanity. Are they making an analogous mistake?

The cowboy and his accouterments still figure heavily in Western fashion, music, tourism, and old town saloons. Cowboys influence commerce far beyond the stockyard. Only a trivially small proportion of horse trailers are sold to genuine cowboys or stockmen. The great majority are parked on ranchettes or even smaller parcels.

Yet the romantic charm of the cowboy seems indelible. Successful urbanites buy into the culture when they purchase their ranchettes. Dude ranches punctuate the West, like mini-theme parks and each year they raise their rates in response to demand. This year in Montana, individuals will pay over $1500 for a weekend at a guest ranch. The cowboy is not gone. Cows remain, and his legacy is felt throughout the West. His mystique still captures America's imagination.

But the cowboy's legacy is eroded when the old myth hits ecological and hydrological realities. Competent and impassioned writers such as Wuerthner blow the whistle and cry foul when environmental damage floods the six o'clock news. Edward Abbey writes, "Western cattlemen are nothing more than welfare parasites. They been getting a free ride on the public lands for over a century, and I think it's time we phased it out."

The West needs a new cowboy, one who tolerates the wolf in Yellowstone Park, the grizzly bear in northern Idaho, and the jaguar in New Mexico. To survive he must adapt his practices to the environmental sensitivities of the Next West.

Adapting our vision of the cowboy requires exploding some myths and building them anew. The cowboy as steward of rangelands and riparian zones, rather than their conquerer, is the place to start.