No More マムシ注意 (Viper Warning) On the Tamagawa

Regular riders up and down the Tamagawa cycling path will remember a small wild area, just south of Route 16 in Akishima-shi.

You can see it here on Google Street View (until Google's next update), looking south from the Route 16 bridge over the Tamagawa.  We usually go around this narrow, twisting and rough (unpaved) section of the path, instead taking the the street a bit farther from the river, here.  But every so often we would take the path.

The most memorable features were the wooden signs, about knee high, at the edge of the path a few places saying マムシ注意 or "watch out for vipers".  The mamushi is a small but highly poisonous Japanese viper.

I have never seen one in the wild, and do not particularly want to!  The warning was doubtless enough to keep most disaffected youth from wandering through the tall grasses toward the river. 

Well, no longer.  The entire area has now been "beautified" and made easily passable!  The path no longer curves.  No longer any high grass for mamushi ... or any other animals of note.  And a much fortified dike to prevent flooding the adjacent areas, whether necessary or not.  Public works!

"Beautifully" straight and barren. No worries about mamushi.