Bombshell from the USFWS?

To me, it seems pretty clear that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is backing away from the Ivory-bill story. One exhibit was this press release, which downplayed the Ivory-bill as a reason for an 1,800-acre land purchase in the Cache River area.

Now, their recently-released Recovery Plan Outline appears to contain a bombshell.
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The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is assigned a recovery priority number of 18 on a scale of 1C (highest) to 18 (lowest; the “C” indicates the potential for conflict with human economic activities) (USFWS 1983a,b).
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Now why is that a bombshell? I found some related information here:
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Species with a high priority rank (1, 1C, 2, 2C) are those that are the most threatened and have the highest potential for recovery. Species with a low rank (16, 17, 18) are the least threatened and have low recovery potentials.
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At the link above, there's a table that shows recovery priority numbers for many species as of September 2002. Note that Whooping Crane and Piping Plover are assigned 2C; Red-cockaded Woodpecker gets an 8C; Bald Eagle gets a 14C, and Ivory-billed Woodpecker rated a 17.

Ok, so the story is: "The Ivory-billed Woodpecker lives!! People around the world sob with joy over the news. This may be the biggest conservation story of the century."

If the USFWS believed the story above, I would think they'd assign the Ivory-bill a recovery priority number pretty near 1. Since they've actually assigned the Ivory-bill an 18, I think they're skeptical.