They were mapped from aerial photos taken by the USN's Operation Highjump in December 1946.

They were named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for William A. Schaefer, a geologist on the Ellsworth Land Survey, 1968–69.

A 300 ha site, comprising the whole island group and the intervening marine area, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International, because it supports some 28,000 breeding pairs of Adélie penguins, estimated from 2011 satellite imagery.

[1] This article incorporates public domain material from "Schaefer Islands".

This Ellsworth Land location article is a stub.