About eight years ago, a rooster named Martín became a fixture at the entrance of the Instituto Oncológico del Oriente Boliviano in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. He arrived with his owner, a cancer patient who could not take him inside the hospital. When the man died, Martín stayed outside and never left the site.
Today staff, patients, relatives and shopkeepers know him well. He spends the day near the entrance and roosts in nearby trees at night or when it rains. Patients, workers and residents provide him with food and water, and a man named Juan Claros looks after him daily. Social worker Rosmery Guardia confirmed that the rooster arrived with a patient who later died and has remained outside the unit ever since.
On social media Martín has been dubbed the "Bolivian Hachiko", after the Japanese dog that also waited for its owner. The comparison is emotional rather than factual: it cannot be said that the rooster understands his owner's death or waits for him in a human sense.