The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology (WFVZ) is a charitable institution based in Camarillo, California, USA.
It hosts a natural history collection specializing in eggs and nests of birds. The collection comprises ~190,000 sets of bird eggs representing approximately 4,000 species, including all orders of extant birds; ~20,000 nests; and 56,000 bird study skins from around the world. The Western Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, is both a natural history collection specializing in eggs and nests of birds from around the world, and a research and education institution dedicated to bird conservation. The Foundation's fundamental mission is to obtain, protect, and manage ornithological collections in a manner that ensures their accessibility to researchers, educators, students, and the public, and to ensure that the materials are used in projects that contribute to the conservation of the world's wild bird species.
The Western Foundation’s collections have contributed to multiple scientific fields (e.g., conservation, ecology, taxonomy, and toxicology). The Foundation’s egg sets have also figured prominently in studies of eggshell thinning due to contaminants (e.g., DDT and heavy metals).
It publishes a journal, the Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology.
Visitors can take guided tours of the collections on the last Friday of every month at 3pm, except in May, November, and December. There are also group tours.