“Moose on the table” (big or difficult issue)

The “moose on the table” is similar to the “elephant in the room”—a big or a difficult problem that no one seems to acknowledge and attempt to tackle. The expression has been in use since at least 1992.
 
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Moose on the table : a collection of recipes for cooking and preserving moose meat
Author: Swede Gano
Publisher: Anahim Lake, B.C. : The Author, ©1975.
Edition/Format:   Book : English
 
The Advocate (August 1994)
The Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy’s Journal of Criminal Justice Education and Research
Pg. 1:
Clearly Identifying the Moose on the Table
Cooperative Problem-Solving
 
Google Books
Total Quality Management in Action
By Gopal K. Kanji; Sheffield Hallam University. Centre for Quality and Innovation.
New York, NY: Chapman & Hall
1996
Pg. 21:
Kearns and Nadler (1992) have a wonderful analogy about the ‘moose on the table’. These are the issues that everyone knows about but no one openly discusses. People will talk over, under, and around the moose, but no one says ‘There’s a moose here that we have to deal with’.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Put the moose on the table : lessons in leadership from a CEO’s journey through business and life
Author: Randall Tobias; Todd Tobias
Publisher: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, ©2003.
Edition/Format:   eBook : Document : Biography : English
     
Urban Dictionary
moose on the table
Expression for an issue no one wants to adress in a meeting.
“well, thats a moose on the table of a situation there”
by aba March 28, 2005
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Moose on the table : a novel approach to communications @ work
Author: Jim Clemmer
Publisher: Toronto, ON : Bastian Books, ©2008.
Edition/Format:   Book : Fiction : English
   
Quartz
NO CAN DO
The world doesn’t want canned soup anymore
By Roberto A. Ferdman @robferdman January 8, 2014
(...)
Campbell’s, the world’s largest soup-seller, is clearly concerned. “You listen to us talk for years about revitalizing the canned soup business that has long been the heart of our enterprise in North America, and you think we’re in denial. The question of the long-term plan for our soup business seems to be a perennial moose on the table,” the company’s CEO Denise Morrison said in an analyst call in late 2012.
 
Twitter
David Garrison
‏@DavidCGarrison
“Putting the moose on the table” RT @BayoTheDog: What turns of phrase describe “pointing out the big pink elephant in the room”?
1:00 PM - 9 Jan 14