sick it is indeed. But it's unfortunately not new to me. I, as a kid, pulled once a bag out of the water, and in it there was a dead, wich was drowned that way. And some of my mates once got the same, but instead of a rat it was a cat. I know now that it is 'common practice'.
Apart from the malicious odour of the decaying rat, the severe cruelty shocked me deeply, also because I realised that suffocating is a hard way to die.
