Bear Hunting

We've had a wild visitor lately...A bear. A real bear. A 250 pound black bear who enjoys the scraps in my trash can more than my kids enjoy the real meal. This bear visited us the first time three weeks ago, and then has been coming nightly the past week. A rational bear-fearing person might think, "If I put my trash away in the garage then the bear won't come to my house." A true blue manly man would contest, "If I leave the trash out and use a baby monitor to monitor any activity, I might get to see this bear!" This gun-toting-independent would then wish he had an airedale to send out after the bear (once spotted), in hopes of getting him treed. And only a true blue redneck would say, "Well if this bear has been caught twice before then this is a third strike and they'll have to put him down...maybe they'll let me have the pelt!"
It was a combination of the three - manly man, independent, redneck, who diligently stalked the Game and Fish Office's phone lines until he was able to convince a ranger to bring a trap out to our home and set it up on our side yard. Honestly, my first thought when Rus said we'd have a bear trap in our yard was "Crap. One of my kids is going to trip that trap and die." But luckily this trap is actually a cage on a small trailer, and it is tripped when the bear fully enters it and steps on a metal plate, thus releasing a pin to slam the rear door and trap him in. (Phew. At least my kids won't die when they trip it, they'll just be stuck in a stinky cage with some rotting cherries.)
Now to back up just a bit: We first saw the bear on Saturday night. We were standing on the porch for this express purpose: Bear Stakeout, and we saw it scamper across the road and up the hill across the street. We didn't get a great look at it, but we did see it! We learned quickly that Game and Fish won't come out unless law enforcement trees the bear. So Rus called 911 and then directed the officer in the direction of the bear, but no luck.
The next night Rus had the genius idea of putting the baby monitor right outside the garage door, with the receiver inside by the couch so that we would hear if the bear came up...And it did! At about ten that night Rus heard something over the receiver, so we both raced across the house to the garage, just in time to see the bear drag away a trash bag out of the trash bin he had just knocked over. He went to the middle of the road and paused there; we booked it across the house again so we could look out the front door. Rus was already dialing 911 and we both planned to just stay inside and try not to spook the bear so that the officers would see it when they came. But as we watched the bear climb the hill across the street, we saw that our neighbor across the street had come out to put his trash out for pick up. So we went out and yelled at him to go back inside (he was maybe twenty yards from the bear. This is "Rus talk". I actually have no idea how far twenty yards is. The neighbor was close). Minutes later the bear was still perched on the hill and the police came, actually spotted him this time, and the officer went up the hill after him. But the bear was too stealthy and got away...
So now we have a trap. Now we sleep with one ear primed to hear the loud slam of the trap door. He didn't come last night, we're hoping to get him tonight!
I'll keep you posted. :)
Here's the trap:
From the rear, peeking inside. Those little black dots are cherries. That dark black line on the bottom of the inside of the cage is the pressure plate. When he steps on that, the door slams shut.