I have lived in NM all my life. 68 years now. I have seen a few rattlesnakes in my youth but you had to go looking for them. They could be found in he lava feilds around Grants NM.
My brother has a ranch in Socorro New Mexico he sees snakes by the watering stations for the cattle when it is very dry. Which by the way it is very dry here now in NM.
When I was in the Navy 68-72 I was a aircraft mechanic on F-8s. We had a bird go down east of San Diego and I was on the crash crew. While going in to this crash site the DO saw a rattlesnake. That is all he talked about while we were on the crash site. So we had to go through snake bite training. The DR that trained us showed us the snake bite kit, told us to unwrap the kit take out the instructions sit down and read the Instructions 5 times front and back. Throw away the kit and help would be there by then. DO NOT USE THE KIT. was his final statement.
Snakes are around but I think they don’t like humans more then humans don’t like them.