Mr Koga's achievements in the Ryukyu Islands (6) (Okinawa Mainichi Shimbun)

Mr Koga's achievements in the Ryukyu Islands (6)

Industrial operations in the Islands
Once all design and construction work had progressed, he set to work with industrial operations in the Islands. In outline, his operations in the Senkaku Islands included collecting bird feathers, stuffing water fowl, gathering shark fin, sea slugs, seashells and tortoise shell, bonito fishing, manufacturing bonito flakes, planting forests, raise camphor, pine, cedar and citrus trees, cultivating land to raise cereals and vegetables, purchasing a steamship, harvesting coral, manufacturing birdlime, farming livestock, sericulture, cannery, and quarrying phosphorus ores and birds' droppings. Of these, he started collecting bird feathers, shark fin, sea slugs, seashells and tortoise shell after his exploration of the Islands in 1884. Bonito fisheries had long been practiced, but until the first bonito ships were built in 1905, these merely consisted of small-scale fishing using dugout canoes and longline.