At least eight sightings of Tasmanian tigers have been reported recently, reviving speculation the mammal is not extinct, as scientists insist.

The reported sightings are contained in a document from Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE). It said there have been eight sightings reported in the past three years.

Scientists declared the thylacine, a large striped carnivore that looks like a cross between a wolf, a fox, and a large cat, extinct after the last known live animal died in captivity in 1936.

The last known live thylacine died in captivity in 1936. (Getty)

Stories abound that the creature continues to exist in the remote wilds of Tasmania, but there has been no hard evidence to support this - only claims of sightings like the ones newly released.

The DPIPWE report said two visitors from Western Australia were "100 per cent certain" a marsupial they saw in January last year was a thylacine.

They described the animal as having "a thick firm tail" with stripes down its back, and was about the size of "a large kelpie".

Reported Tasmanian tiger sightings. (9News)

The animal "turned and looked at the vehicle a couple of times" and "was in clear view for 12-15 seconds," the report read. Both people in the car "are 100 per cent certain that the animal they saw was a thylacine."

Another report filed in February described a witness seeing a striped "cat-like creature" moving through the mist in the distance.

"I am accustomed to coming across most animals working on rural farms ... and I have never come across an animal anything close to what I saw in Tasmania that day," the person who reported the sighting told the department.

Another person said she saw what she believed to be a thylacine mother and two cubs at the Hartz Mountains on a weekend in November last year.

In August, a landowner in the Tasmanian Midlands reported seeing a Tasmanian tiger in the region seven years ago.

It had yellowish brown fur, with powerful jaws and a pouch for its young.

In 2017, another driver reported seeing a possible thylacine near the Deep Gully Forest Reserve in northwestern Tasmania.

He didn't see stripes, but he was about 150 metres away - likely too far to have seen that level of detail. He "seemed certain that if it was a cat it was a bloody big one," the witness in the report said.

Most recently in July, a man in southern Tasmania, near Hobart, reported seeing a footprint that seemed to match that of the Tasmanian tiger.

European colonists killed thousands of thylacines to protect their livestock. (Supplied)

These reports reflect just how large the thylacine still looms in the collective imagination.

Native to Tasmania and the Australian mainland, it was the only member of the Thylacinidae family to survive into modern times, according to the Australian Museum.

European colonists killed thousands of thylacines for attacking sheep.

Today, the thylacine still remains a major component of Tasmanian culture.

It maintains almost Loch Ness Monster status, with regular claims of unsubstantiated sightings.