  We have measured the lifetime of the 5s5p ^3P_2 metastable state of strontium
atoms by magneto-optically trapping the decayed atoms to the ground state,
which allowed sensitive detection of the rare decay events. We found that the
blackbody radiation-induced decay was the dominant decay channel for the state
at T = 300 K. The lifetime was determined to be 500^{+280}_{-130} s in the
limit of zero temperature.
