"There is a story told by one of the Elders of a tribe not far from here, from years ago when she was very young. Several of the children were out gathering acorns with one of the adults when they heard the sound of a bear coming from the other side of some bushes. The children always enjoyed sneaking up on the black bears in order to jump up, scare the bears and watch them run away in terror. They had no fear of these bears and thought of them as big scared bunny rabbits. As they prepared for their traditional ‘game’ the supervising adult saw that it was a grizzly instead of a black bear. She quickly but quietly told them to “Stand like sticks!” The children then realized this was the other kind of bear and were so afraid they wanted to run as fast as they could to get away but their guardian held them there, motionless, until long after the big bear had departed. Many of their people had been killed or severely injured by these big grizzly bears. No one they knew had ever been killed by a black bear. And, even to this day, no one in California (or Nevada) has been killed by a black bear."

http://www.savebears.org/info/annsInsights/howdangerousare.htm