Our Sustainability

Animals follow resources—food, shelter, a place to rest—and if they can’t consistently and easily find what they need, they will find someplace else to stop. Five Oaks provides several different types of resource habitats for migratory and wintering waterfowl: moist soil, with herbaceous plants such as crabgrass, toothcup, and smartweed; flooded cropland; green tree reservoirs; and carbohydrate-rich food plots of corn, millet, buckwheat, and milo, which provide fuel on extremely cold days. Think of it as “setting the table”—and rolling out the red carpet, polishing the silverware, fluffing the pillows, and providing a string quartet for ambiance. This is why the mallards and wood ducks return to Five Oaks, and why our guests have an unparalleled experience, season after season.

George Dunklin, Jr.

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

George grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, not far from Stuttgart—the “Rice and Duck Capital of the World.” He began accompanying his father on hunting trips at the age of eight and shot his first gun at ten—sparking a lifelong passion for the sport of waterfowl hunting. George’s maternal grandfather, Lester A. Black, owned farmland in Arkansas County, which George visited throughout his youth. After college in Memphis, he moved to Arkansas County to farm that land, and he never left it. George’s abiding passion for and dedicated service to conservation led him to become a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission from 2005 to 2012 and served as its Chairman from 2011-2012. Additionally, after volunteering since the age of 16, he became president of Ducks Unlimited from 2013-2015. When George was named in 2009 “Budweiser Conservationist of the Year,” he used the accompanying $50,000 grant money to support the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, the public lands adjacent to Five Oaks, because he believes in the sanctity of our public areas. George and his wife, Livia, have three grown daughters.

Our Team