Thousands of people have claimed to have seen the Tasmanian tiger since it went “extinct” in 1936.

There is a popular map showing hundreds of sightings in Tasmania but there are also similar maps from mainland Australia - and in particular south-west Western Australia and Victoria. The post-1936 sightings go as far as Queensland and Northern Territory in the north, and Western Papua to the north of Australia. (We do know - apart from sighting claims - the thylacine lived on that landmass thanks to the discovery of thylacine fossils there).

I have traveled interstate to Tasmania many times in search of the Tasmanian tiger. I have not seen one myself but it is not hard to find locals who have seen it or know someone that has.

When I visited the northeast coast, speaking to a shop keeper gave me the story of one. A friend of mine saw one in the north in the early 1990s and his father saw one 10 years before that. Just this year I flew down to Hobart and struck up a conversation with the person next to me on the plane - his brother was born on the west coast of Tasmania and had spent his whole life there. He too says he has seen a Tasmanian tiger - just 10 years ago, and even this week I have been forwarded some compelling photographs of footprints that look to be good for a match with the Tasmanian tiger, taken about 10 years ago also in the far south.

Of course your question asks how many times a tiger has been *seen* and not just claimed to have been seen. We can’t really know that. Did every single one of those people who claimed to have seen one get it right?

And, as has been said by others before me, the law courts have this same issue of trying to interpret eye-witness accounts to any number of events. Yet just because we can’t wind back the clock and take a look for ourselves at what these eye-witnesses say they have seen doesn’t change the fact that many people do believe they have seen one.

So the short answer is - many hundreds, if not thousands, of people claim to have seen one.

You can also find out more about Tasmanian tigers - including the examination of the evidence for many sighting claims - at my website Where Light Meets Dark or follow along on Facebook Where Light Meets Dark.