five - a magic polar bear number

Recently I was chatting with a Canadian professor who spends much of his time fossil prospecting in the high arctic. Apart from some amazingly variable weather (this is the Western Canadian high Arctic, which apparently behaves very differently than other sections), one of the largest dangers is the polar bear.

He noted that he always takes groups of six or more. It seems polar bears consider groups of five or more humans too large to hunt.

One wonders if six is infinity for polar bears or if it is just a threshold. (one also wonders if bears can sort out the difference between things like 2 and 5).

His claim is this is fairly common knowledge among arctic explorer types ... so file it away...