Dedicated to the rehabilitation and release of all species of wild birds in Rhode Island

About Us

Birds that are wild are meant to be free in the wild. At Congress of the Birds, we rehabilitate with release in mind. We are both state licensed and federally permitted to care for all species of wild birds at our clinic. Through providing both medical and rehabilitative care, our center treats upwards of 1,000 avian patients every year, and provides triage and stabilization for ALL species of wild animals. We work alongside a team of volunteers who help care for our avian patients, as well as maintaining our facilities.

Sheida Soleimani started rehabbing wildlife with her maman, a political refugee from Iran, who was a nurse back in their home country. After seeking asylum and moving to the United States, her mother was unable to continue her practice as a nurse. Wanting to continue to help and nurture, she found a local wildlife rehab center, where she began to volunteer. Sheida was raised around the wild animals her mother would rehabilitate, and through this, grew to pursue it as a passion of her own.

Throughout college and grad school, while studying to receive her degrees in art, Sheida continued to volunteer as a bird rehabilitator and would rehab a handful of wild birds out of the bathroom of her apartment every year. The birds became a primary source in her artwork, and after graduating with an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015, she moved to Rhode Island to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design. While getting settled into a new life in Rhode Island, she realized that she missed caring for birds. In 2016, she received her state rehabilitation license, and began rehabilitating wild birds out of the basement of her rental carriage house. The rest is history.

When she joined the visual arts faculty at Brandeis University in 2018, Sheida founded Congress of the Birds in her home on Congress Avenue in Providence, RI. Having a larger space meant that she could treat more avian patients, and the intake numbers grew! In 2020, Sheida received her Federal Migratory Bird Rehabilitation Permit, and The Providence facility houses a fully-equipped wildlife clinic, complete with an oxygen concentrator and chamber, incubator for hatchling and debilitated birds, washing station for waterproofing baths, seabird and waterfowl tub, species specific enclosures, microscopy and blood testing equipment, and four large outdoor aviaries/flight enclosures for birds of various sizes. 

Spring 2024 Land Center Update!

In addition to the Providence facility, Congress of the Birds was lucky enough to receive a large donation of land, to allow us to have a ‘release center’ for our wild patients after their in-clinic care is complete. The Congress of the Birds ‘Land Center’ is located on 42 secluded forest acres dedicated not only to rehabilitation and release of birds, but also to providing opportunities for students to engage with wildlife up close, and to reflect their encounters through a variety of arts and education experiences and practices.

Education

Federal and state education permits allow us to house and work with birds that can not be returned to their natural habitats, provided we share them through educational presentations. These particular birds have become ambassadors and have helped us to educate the public on ways we can better co-exist with all wildlife within our very own backyards. Congress of the Birds is home to two Common Ravens who are unfortunately unable to be released due to human habituation. We run a variety of educational programs with our ravens.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) prohibits the take (including killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport) of protected migratory bird species without prior authorization by the Department of Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

If you find an injured or orphaned baby bird, please CALL A WILDLIFE REHABILITATOR immediately. It is illegal to keep these birds as pets without the proper permitting and facilities.

Congress of the Birds: Education Programming 

Congress of the Birds offers innovative education programs to meet the needs and interests of a variety of audiences. All COTB programs happen on site, and include the presentation of non-releasable corvids to increase engagement and understanding of these birds. Specific programs have been developed for:

• Students of all ages
• Special interest groups
• Artists

Programs can be adapted to fit specific curriculum or classroom objectives. If you are interested in our education programs, please get in touch with us via email at congressofthebirds@gmail.com.

Clever Corvids Program

The Clever Corvids program is a single-visit program that can be adapted to grade levels 1 through 12. During this program, students learn about corvid adaptations through discussion and various activities with biofacts. Students have a chance to see these adaptations in our live birds as our corvids work on problem solving via puzzles, obstacles, and route finding; at the same time, students will also learn about the social and natural dynamics of these species as they interact with each other and their surrounding environment.

 Avian Art & Activism

This is our flagship educational program. As an art educator, environmental activist, and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator with more than fifteen years of experience, Professor Sheida Soleimani will lead students through two 1-hour courses that can be done on the same day, or on two separate visits to the facility. Before students meet the birds, Professor Soleimani presents the challenges that birds—and particularly corvids—face in urban environments like our home city of Providence. Drawing upon evidence from cases that Soleimani has treated herself, as well as broader concerning data, she discusses facts including the leading causes of death for corvids in cities and connects these deaths to the ways built environments are designed and the ways that humans inhabit them. The class will then discuss how art as a form of activism can be used to teach our communities better ways of designing and inhabiting these built environments. Each program is presented with live, non-releasable birds and includes a slideshow presentation detailing the individual bird’s history in addition to how the bird fits into the local ecosystem. As in the Clever Corvids program, following the presentation and discussion, students will have an opportunity to see our live birds working on puzzles and solving problems, while learning about how these species interact with the local environment. During the second visit, students/artists will discuss their ideas for their art pieces, and will get to meet both of our ravens up close and personal, who will sit on a perch (with jesses and leash) and be the live subjects for figure drawings, photographs, and research studies for artists. 

MEET

You might see videos of people on Tik-Tok, Instagram, or other forms of social media that have ‘pet’ crows and ravens. In the videos, they seem cute! People are talking to them, brushing them, giving them treats, and you might get the idea that it’s okay to keep a crow or raven if you find one. Please remember that wild birds are meant to be wild! If you find an injured bird, please do not attempt to keep it as a pet! Contact a wildlife rehabilitator ASAP! Our two education birds were kept by members of the public and unfortunately became imprinted onto people,

 ZOLA

Zola, hatch year 2023

Zola arrived to us after being found grounded at another rehabilitation center who told us that she was ‘extremely friendly’. Upon intake, we noticed that both wings looked to be clipped off with scissors, in the manner that you would clip a pet birds wings to prevent it from flying away. It was clear from this that someone had attempted to keep her as a pet, and after being unable to care for her, set her loose. Upon intake, she was extremely emaciated, and was positive for coccidia. Every attempt was made to re-wild her, including pairing her with our other raven in care (Zia), but it became clear that she had already become habituated to humans in her time before coming to Congress of the Birds.

Zola is very talkative, and we think she is cleverer than Zia. She enjoys doing puzzles, caching her food in the slats of wood in her enclosure, and chasing balls!

ZIA

Zia, hatch year 2023

In June of 2023, another Rhode Island rehabilitator messaged us to report that she had gotten a 'very large crow' at her facility. She stated that the bird ‘walked right up to the finder, and into a carrier’. As you can imagine, this is not appropriate behavior for a wild bird! When our director went to pick up the bird, she noted that he was a Common Raven, and was unusually calm and friendly towards people. After months in care and multiple attempts to ‘re-wild’ the raven, it was obvious that the damage had been done by whoever had cared for the bird in its nestling phase. Corvids are extremely impressionable birds that imprint on people easily! We assume that Zia had been raised by a human, who had then attempted to ‘release’ him without the proper knowledge. When he came into our care, he was severely emaciated, with various metabolic issues from poor nutrition. 

Now, Zia enjoys spending time with his ‘sister’ Zola, eating eyeballs, grapes, and ripping cardboard.

Get Involved

Volunteer

Care about wildlife as much we do? We are always looking for volunteers and transporters! Each Spring we host training classes to get our volunteers ready for the busy baby season, but we always offer one-on-one trainings for eager volunteers throughout the season. In addition to volunteering, we receive dozens of phone calls every day about animals in need of help all over Rhode Island. While we wish we could drive out to pick every single one up, we just can't - that's where you come in! By joining our transport thread, you'll get notifications when an animal is in need of help.

If volunteering interests you, please reach out to Jen at congressofthebirds@gmail.com and let's get started!

Join Our Patreon

Don't have the time to dedicate to volunteer or transport but still want to support us? Join our Patreon starting at as low as $5 a month and enjoy special perks, updates, live feeds, and more!

Amazon Wishlist

We are in constant need of supplies to keep us afloat. Between simple things like paper towels and tissues, to oxygen stabilizers and microscopes, we can always use a hand, big or small. Check out our Amazon Wishlist.

Donate

We depend on fundraisers, grants and private donations to provide for our many patients. You can be part of the solution! Your tax deductible donation means a wild animal will get a second chance at life. Donate here!

Sheida Soleimani

Founder, Executive Director

Jonathan Schroeder

Treasurer, Co-Director

Thalia Field

Secretary

Jen Chicoine

Director of Operations

Founder, Executive Director

Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American artist, educator, activist, and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator. The daughter of political refugees who escaped Iran in the early 1980s, Soleimani makes work that excavates the histories of violence linking Iran, the United States, and the Greater Middle East. In working across form and medium—especially photography, sculpture, collage, and film—she often appropriates source images from popular/digital media and resituates them within defamiliarizing tableaux.

Soleimani’s work is held in permanent collections including the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, MIT List Visual Art Center, and Kadist Paris. Her work has been recognized internationally in both exhibitions and publications such as The New York Times, Financial Times, Art in America, Interview Magazine, among many others. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, Soleimani is also an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University.

Secretary

Thalia Field is an acclaimed experimental writer (Personhood; Bird Lovers, Backyard; Experimental Animals: A Reality Fiction) and the Adele K Seaver Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.

Treasurer and Co-Director

Jonathan Schroeder is a historian, critic, and lecturer at RISD. His work focuses on the histories of human and nonhuman captivity. After rediscovering it in 2017, his edition of The United State Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Tale of Slavery and biography of its author, John Swanson Jacobs, was profiled by the New York Times and is out from Chicago. He is also the editor of Ahab Unbound: Melville and the Materialist Turn (Minnesota) and has books forthcoming from Harvard (Prisoners of Loss: An Atlantic History of Nostalgia) and Duke (Lauren Berlant: A Reader).

Director of Operations

Jen Chicoine has had a passion for animals her entire life. After meeting Sheida and Jon in 2021 and seeing their growing wildlife facility, she knew she needed to be involved. She is the General Manager at gift and print shop, Frog & Toad, in Providence, RI. While she has no incredible art installations or literary talents of note, her passion for wildlife and organizational skills are a great asset to Congress of the Birds.