Joe, I know you don't have a problem with scientists, but there are a lot of people out there who think that scientists are the bad guys. In actuality, we collect data and present it, it's the politicians who run with the stuff for better or for worse. Science is logical, politics isn't.
James, I'm not entirely sure what data FL Fish and Wildlife were collecting, but if it was my study I would need to get an idea of the effort put in. For example, I would like to know the total area searched, search time, number of people searching, etc. to get an idea of snake detections per unit effort.
If you want to see how this actually works, you can read about "removal" or "depletion" population estimation. This is a
very basic model and I guarantee there are far more complicated statistics being employed by far more statistically minded folks than me for Burmese pythons (note that it really doesn't include issues of initial detectability, although it somewhat covers for it by having a probability of capture in the equation). However, it does give you a basic idea of how this can work. Go to section 7.2.1 in this document to read more about it:
http://www.michigandnr.com/publicati...0Chapter07.pdf
At this stage the estimates are going to be rather crude simply because detectability seems to be so low, we just need to know if it's low because the animals aren't there or if it's because we just can't find the ones that are there very easily. In statistics sample size means everything, and without adequate numbers it's really hard to make any sort of refined population estimates, but with more information coming in all the time our estimates will only get better.