Wildlife conservationists have released new video footage showing what is believed to be one of three jaguars seen in the United States in the past few years.

The video was released on Thursday by the Centre for Biological Diversity, a US non-profit group based in Tucson.

It was taken by taken by remote sensor cameras in the Chiricahua Mountains near Willcox, Arizona, this US summer.

The cat has been named "Sombra", Spanish for "Shadow", the group reported.

It appears - from its spot pattern - to be the same jaguar photographed wandering through the Dos Cabezas Mountains in Arizona about 100 kilometres north of the US-Mexico border. 

The video also shows a black bear, deer, mountain lion, coati and black bear cub passing through.

Conservationists think the recent sightings are evidence that the jaguar is returning to the US.

They are suing to stop a proposed wall on the border, which they say will deter jaguars who migrate from the south.

The south-west was home to jaguars before habitat loss and predator control programs aimed at protecting livestock eliminated them over the past 150 years.

The Centre for Biological Diversity says it doesn't know the jaguar's gender.

The two others that have been seen recently are both male, and state officials have said it's been decades since a female was there.

The first jaguar to be seen recently popped up in the Whetstone Mountains in south-eastern Arizona in 2011 when he was about three.

Dubbed "El Jefe", Spanish for "The Boss", he was seen again in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson about September 2015.

A trail camera photo taken on December 1 in a mountain range near Fort Huachuca, an army installation about 120 kilometres south-east of Tucson, captured a second jaguar that was seen on camera again in January.

About seven jaguars have been documented in southern Arizona and south-western New Mexico since 1996.