Using presence/absence data collected during the South African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2, \citealt{Brooks2020}) and information published on the breeding ecology and satellite-tracked movements of the Black Harrier (Curtis et al. 2004, Simmons et al. 2005, Garcia-Heras et al. 2016, 2017a, 2019) we define sensible priors for a Bayesian dynamic occupancy model. However, our main objective is not estimating occupancy probabilities \citep[see][]{Royle_2007}, but to investigate changes in the population underlying occupancy and how these changes relate to specific life history parameters \citep{Royle2003,Rossman_2016}. We undertake a population viability assessment of the effects of fatalities of harriers at wind farm facilities in South Africa using Monte Carlo simulations to forecast scenarios under different levels of added mortality.