The Tuktoyaktuk Hunters and Trappers Committee voted in favour of a two-year hunting ban for the Cape Bathurst caribou herd at a meeting in the community Tuesday.

The herd has dropped from 17,000 in the early 1990s to 1,800 in 2006.

After a voluntary ban established earlier this year was largely ignored, the committee decided to make it illegal for Inuvialuit to hunt the herd, chairman Paul Voudrach said.

"You've got to think of your children," Voudrach said. "You've got to think of the future because they're the ones who are going to suffer if we don't establish what we're doing."

Inuvialuit hunter Stanley Felix, who shot six caribou last spring despite the voluntary ban, said he hesitated before setting out but decided he had no choice.

"I still have a family to feed tomorrow," said Felix. "I still have to feed kids, wife, brothers, sisters. It doesn't change the fact that we have to eat."

The ban will cover the herd's habitat from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik, and halfway to Paulatuk to the east .

Hunters caught there could be fined as much as $1,000 or sent to jail for 12 months.

Officials say it will take a few months before the ban goes into effect.

The committee will review the ban in two years to see if it is still needed.

The Cape Bathurst caribou herd lives further north of the much larger Bathurst herd in the Northwest Territories.